With reference to 'South Coast of Australia' which of the following statements is/are correct? 1. It is situated along the Indian Ocean 2. It experiences rain during its winter months of December and January Select the answer using the code given below:

Correct — A, 1 only. Australia's south coast, from Cape Leeuwin round the Great Australian Bight to the Victorian shore, fronts water that international ocean limits assign to the Indian Ocean, so statement 1 stands. Statement 2 fails on two counts at once. Australia is in the southern hemisphere, where December and January are the height of summer, not winter; and the south-western and southern coastal belt has a Mediterranean-type regime whose rain falls in the June-to-August winter. Perth's wettest months are June and July, and January is close to its driest.

• (b)2 only — This accepts the calendar of the northern hemisphere. South of the equator the seasons are reversed, so December and January cannot be winter months for any part of Australia.
• (c)Both 1 and 2 — Statement 1 is sound, but pairing it with statement 2 imports the same seasonal error. The south coast's rain arrives in the austral winter of June, July and August.
• (d)Neither 1 nor 2 — Rejecting statement 1 as well goes too far. The waters off southern and western Australia are treated as Indian Ocean under the ocean limits in force, which is the convention Indian school and college atlases follow.

Australia is washed by the Indian Ocean on the west and south and by the Pacific on the east. Its southern and south-western coastal strip has a Mediterranean climate: hot dry summers in December and January, and cool wet winters in June, July and August, when the westerly wind belt and its rain-bearing fronts shift north over the continent. The same climate type is found in southern Europe, central Chile, the Cape of South Africa and California.

Two habits get punished here. The first is reading a southern-hemisphere calendar as if it were northern; December is midsummer in Perth and Adelaide. The second is forgetting that Mediterranean climates are the one major type with a winter rainfall maximum, which is why the Australian wheat belt is sown in autumn. The naming of the water is worth one honest caveat: Australia's own charts call the sea off its southern coast the Southern Ocean, while the ocean limits used internationally place the Southern Ocean south of 60 degrees and leave the Great Australian Bight in the Indian Ocean. The examiner has followed the second convention.

• Southern-hemisphere summer runs from December to February and winter from June to August.
• The south and west coasts of Australia have a Mediterranean climate with a winter rainfall maximum.
• Perth records its heaviest rain in June and July; January is one of its driest months.
• Under the ocean limits in general international use, the Great Australian Bight belongs to the Indian Ocean; Australia's national practice calls the same water the Southern Ocean.
• The Indian Ocean and Pacific meet south of Australia near the meridian of south-eastern Tasmania.

• Reading December as a winter month out of northern-hemisphere habit.
• Assuming every coast gets its rain in summer, as monsoon India does.
• Placing the whole of Australia's southern water in the Southern Ocean without noting which convention is being used.

A two-statement item whose second statement carries two independent errors, so a candidate who spots either one reaches the answer.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Mediterranean type of climate is marked by

  • (a)rainfall concentrated in summer
  • (b)rainfall concentrated in winter
  • (c)rainfall spread evenly through the year
  • (d)almost no rainfall at any season

  Answer(b) rainfall concentrated in winter — the westerlies and their fronts reach these latitudes only in the cool season.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following Australian cities has a Mediterranean climate?

  • (a)Darwin
  • (b)Perth
  • (c)Cairns
  • (d)Brisbane

  Answer(b) Perth — hot dry summers and wet winters, unlike the tropical monsoon of Darwin and the humid subtropical east coast.